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AK Railroad poised to try shipping LNG Demonstration trips between Southcentral and Fairbanks will test the viability of this means of upping gas supplies to the Interior ALAN BAILEY Petroleum News
The Alaska Railroad is about to test the shipment of liquefied natural gas in Alaska, the first occasion that LNG will have been shipped by rail in the United States, the railroad has announced. The railroad has borrowed two cryogenic tank LNG containers from Hitachi High-Tech AW Cryo Inc. - the design of the containers allows them to be carried by truck as well as by rail. With the containers having arrived in Alaska on Sept. 11, the railroad plans the first of a series of demonstration railroad LNG transportation trips for Sept. 27.
Assess railroad option The idea is to ship LNG from Southcentral Alaska to the city of Fairbanks in the Alaska Interior, with the demonstration trips enabling an assessment of the cost of this transportation option. Gas utility Fairbanks Natural Gas, owned by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, and Hitachi High-Tech are supporting the project. AIDEA’s Interior Energy Project is considering the use of railroad transportation as a means of shipping LNG to Fairbanks in conjunction with an expanded gas supply for the city.
In October 2015 the Federal Railroad Administration approved the conducting of railroad LNG transportation tests in Alaska, the first time the agency has allowed this transportation option anywhere in the country. The railroad plans eight LNG round trips to Fairbanks over four weeks.
Trucked to LNG facility Each of the two 40-foot insulated containers, manufactured by Hitachi, can carry up to 7,023 gallons of LNG. For the shipping demonstration, the containers will be trucked to the Titan LNG facility at Point MacKenzie on Cook Inlet, where the containers will be filled with LNG before being trucked back to the railroad yard in Anchorage. In Anchorage the containers will be loaded onto a railroad flatcar for transportation to Fairbanks. In Fairbanks a flatbed truck will transfer the containers to the Fairbanks Natural Gas LNG storage facility in the city, where the tanks will be unloaded. The railroad will then ship the empty containers back to Anchorage.
The railroad says that the LNG transportation exercise must meet several specific operating conditions and that it will review the results of the demonstration trips with the Federal Railroad Administration, to ensure that the agency is satisfied that the railroad can transport LNG safely.
Safety training And, as part of the safety regime for the trips, the railroad is training its crews in the characteristics of LNG and in safe handling procedures for the material. Prior to the trips the railroad is also training first responders, including Railbelt firefighters, emergency medical teams and police. Personnel from the railroad’s safety, environmental, mechanical and train operations departments will review the properties of LNG, as well as hazards and response methods associated with the material. As part of the training the railroad staff will also review potential hazards and challenges specific to the railroad.
In conjunction with the Interior Energy Project, last winter Fairbanks Natural Gas tested the use of a prototype 75-foot, 13,000-gallon-capacity trailer for shipping LNG from the Cook Inlet region and from the North Slope to Fairbanks by road. The gas utility currently ships LNG from the Titan facility to Fairbanks by road, but using smaller trailers. The idea is that a larger capacity trailer design or the shipment by railroad would come into play for the cost-effective transportation of a greatly increased LNG supply for the Fairbanks region.
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